The present invention relates to an apparatus and a method for testing a socket. Particularly, the present invention relates to an apparatus and a method for testing a socket, in which the socket for testing the quality of semiconductor devices is tested to decide good or no good quality of it.
Generally, a semiconductor device such as a semiconductor chip is installed into s socket to test the good or no good quality of the chip. That is, various characteristics such as temperature, voltage and the like are tested.
In this testing procedure, the semiconductor device can be found to be defective, but in some cases, the semiconductor device is judged to be defective because of a defective socket, and for example, a connector pin and the like of the socket may be defective.
In the case where the socket is defective, in order to find whether the contactor pin is defective, the resistance values of the contactor pins are manually measured one by one. That is, a measuring probe of the resistance measuring apparatus is contacted to the contactor terminals one by one, and if the measured value of the contactor pin is larger than a reference value, then the relevant socket is judged to be defective.
However, since this operation is carried out one by one with hands, very much time and manpower are consumed.
Further, the inherent resistance value of the contactor pin is extremely small, whereas the inherent resistance values of the resistance measuring apparatus and its probe wire are very much larger than the resistance value of the contactor pin, and therefore, a precise measurement is not possible, with the result that the reliability of the judgment on the good or no good quality is very low.
For this reason, if it is judged that the defect does not lie in the semiconductor device, then the expensive socket is wholly discarded, thereby increasing the facility cost burden. This leads to the increase of the measuring expense, resulting in that the price of the semiconductor device rises.
The present invention is intended to overcome the above described disadvantages of the conventional technique.
Therefore it is an object of the present invention to provide an apparatus and a method for testing a socket, in which the resistance values of the contactor pins of the socket can be precisely measured, and the measurement is made automatic so as to decrease the expense and manpower.
In achieving the above object, the socket testing apparatus according to the present invention includes: a contact unit for obtaining the resistance values of respective channels of a calibration PCB and the resistance values of respective channels of a socket-installed PCB; a multiplexer for channeling the respective resistance values from the contact unit so as to output the resistance values of the respective channels in a sequential manner; a resistance measurement part for storing the respective output resistance values of the multiplexer into a memory, and for calculating differences between the mentioned resistance values and the resistance values of the respective channels of a socket-installed PCB; a controller for controlling the operations of the respective elements, and for outputting the output calculation values of the resistance measurement part to a display part; and the display part displaying the output of the controller.
The contact unit includes: a measurement table with the calibration PCB or the socket-installed PCB mounted thereupon; a contact structure installed thereupon, for contacting to the calibration PCB or to the socket-installed PCB so as to form a closed circuit loop; a first moving means for moving the contact structure up and down, so as to make it contacted to pads of the calibration PCB or to a contactors of the socket; and a second moving means for moving the first moving means horizontally.